U.S. Intelligence Found Iran Nuke Document Was Forged

Gareth Porter
After Downing Street
December 28, 2009

U.S. intelligence has concluded that the document published recently by the Times of London, which purportedly describes an Iranian plan to do experiments on what the newspaper described as a “neutron initiator” for an atomic weapon, is a fabrication, according to a former Central Intelligence Agency official.

Philip Giraldi, who was a CIA counterterrorism official from 1976 to 1992, told IPS that intelligence sources say that the United States had nothing to do with forging the document, and that Israel is the primary suspect. The sources do not rule out a British role in the fabrication, however.

The Times of London story published Dec. 14 did not identify the source of the document. But it quoted “an Asian intelligence source” – a term some news media have used for Israeli intelligence officials – as confirming that his government believes Iran was working on a neutron initiator as recently as 2007.

The story of the purported Iranian document prompted a new round of expressions of U.S. and European support for tougher sanctions against Iran and reminders of Israel’s threats to attack Iranian nuclear programme targets if diplomacy fails.

U.S. news media reporting has left the impression that U.S. intelligence analysts have not made up their mind about the document’s authenticity, although it has been widely reported that they have now had a full year to assess the issue.

Giraldi’s intelligence sources did not reveal all the reasons that led analysts to conclude that the purported Iran document had been fabricated by a foreign intelligence agency. But their suspicions of fraud were prompted in part by the source of the story, according to Giraldi.

“The Rupert Murdoch chain has been used extensively to publish false intelligence from the Israelis and occasionally from the British government,” Giraldi said.

The Times is part of a Murdoch publishing empire that includes the Sunday Times, Fox News and the New York Post. All Murdoch-owned news media report on Iran with an aggressively pro-Israeli slant.

The document itself also had a number of red flags suggesting possible or likely fraud.

The subject of the two-page document which the Times published in English translation would be highly classified under any state’s security system. Yet there is no confidentiality marking on the document, as can be seen from the photograph of the Farsi-language original published by the Times.

The absence of security markings has been cited by the Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, as evidence that the “alleged studies” documents, which were supposedly purloined from an alleged Iranian nuclear weapons-related programme early in this decade, are forgeries.

The document also lacks any information identifying either the issuing office or the intended recipients. The document refers cryptically to “the Centre”, “the Institute”, “the Committee”, and the “neutron group”.

The document’s extreme vagueness about the institutions does not appear to match the concreteness of the plans, which call for hiring eight individuals for different tasks for very specific numbers of hours for a four-year time frame.

Including security markings and such identifying information in a document increases the likelihood of errors that would give the fraud away.

The absence of any date on the document also conflicts with the specificity of much of the information. The Times reported that unidentified “foreign intelligence agencies” had dated the document to early 2007, but gave no reason for that judgment.

An obvious motive for suggesting the early 2007 date is that it would discredit the U.S. intelligence community’s November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iran had discontinued unidentified work on nuclear weapons and had not resumed it as of the time of the estimate.

Discrediting the NIE has been a major objective of the Israeli government for the past two years, and the British and French governments have supported the Israeli effort.

The biggest reason for suspecting that the document is a fraud is its obvious effort to suggest past Iranian experiments related to a neutron initiator. After proposing experiments on detecting pulsed neutrons, the document refers to “locations where such experiments used to be conducted”.

That reference plays to the widespread assumption, which has been embraced by the International Atomic Energy Agency, that Iran had carried out experiments with Polonium-210 in the late 1980s, indicating an interest in neutron initiators. The IAEA referred in reports from 2004 through 2007 to its belief that the experiment with Polonium-210 had potential relevance to making “a neutron initiator in some designs of nuclear weapons”.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the political arm of the terrorist organisation Mujahedeen-e Khalq, claimed in February 2005 that Iran’s research with Polonium-210 was continuing and that it was now close to producing a neutron initiator for a nuclear weapon.

Sanger and Broad were so convinced that the Polonium-210 experiments proved Iran’s interest in a neutron initiator that they referred in their story on the leaked document to both the IAEA reports on the experiments in the late 1980s and the claim by NCRI of continuing Iranian work on such a nuclear trigger.

What Sanger and Broad failed to report, however, is that the IAEA has acknowledged that it was mistaken in its earlier assessment that the Polonium-210 experiments were related to a neutron initiator.

After seeing the complete documentation on the original project, including complete copies of the reactor logbook for the entire period, the IAEA concluded in its Feb. 22, 2008 report that Iran’s explanations that the Polonium-210 project was fundamental research with the eventual aim of possible application to radio isotope batteries was “consistent with the Agency’s findings and with other information available to it”.

The IAEA report said the issue of Polonium-210 – and thus the earlier suspicion of an Iranian interest in using it as a neutron initiator for a nuclear weapon – was now considered “no longer outstanding”.

New York Times reporters David Sanger and William J. Broad reported U.S. intelligence officials as saying the intelligence analysts “have yet to authenticate the document”. Sanger and Broad explained the failure to do so, however, as a result of excessive caution left over from the CIA’s having failed to brand as a fabrication the document purporting to show an Iraqi effort to buy uranium in Niger.

The Washington Post’s Joby Warrick dismissed the possibility that the document might be found to be fraudulent. “There is no way to establish the authenticity or original source of the document…,” wrote Warrick.

But the line that the intelligence community had authenticated it evidently reflected the Barack Obama administration’s desire to avoid undercutting a story that supports its efforts to get Russian and Chinese support for tougher sanctions against Iran.

This is not the first time that Giraldi has been tipped off by his intelligence sources on forged documents. Giraldi identified the individual or office responsible for creating the two most notorious forged documents in recent U.S. intelligence history.

In 2005, Giraldi identified Michael Ledeen, the extreme right-wing former consultant to the National Security Council and the Pentagon, as an author of the fabricated letter purporting to show Iraqi interest in purchasing uranium from Niger. That letter was used by the George W. Bush administration to bolster its false case that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear weapons programme.

Giraldi also identified officials in the “Office of Special Plans” who worked under Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith as having forged a letter purportedly written by Hussein’s intelligence director, Tahir Jalail Habbush al-Tikriti, to Hussein himself referring to an Iraqi intelligence operation to arrange for an unidentified shipment from Niger.

Research related links

1. Iran Says Nuke Documents are Forged
2. U.S. Intel Report Concludes Iran Has Not Taken Steps to Make Nuke Bomb
3. Commission Recommends U.S. Use ‘Direct Force’–If Needed–to Stop Iran, N. Korea Nuke Programs
4. Report Ties Dubious Iran Nuclear Docs to Israel
5. Could Iran Trigger A New Cuban Missile Crisis?
6. Intelligence agencies say Iran has enough nuclear fuel for bomb
7. ‘No credible evidence’ of Iranian nuclear weapons, says UN inspector
8. Obama Tells G-20 Iran Has Secret Nuke Facility
9. U.S. military chief says clock ticking on Iran nuke
10. Defense Intelligence Agency History Confuses Iraq and Iran
11. Obama, McCain to face ‘imminent Iran threat’
12. IAEA: Iran not producing weapon-grade uranium

Russia to work on new nuclear missiles: Medvedev

Reuters
December 25, 2009

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia will work on a new generation of nuclear missiles to ensure its nuclear deterrent remains effective, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday.

Medvedev said the new missiles would be developed in full accordance with arms agreements made with the United States.

“Of course, we will develop new systems, including delivery systems, that is, missiles,” Medvedev said in an end-of-year interview with state-controlled television channels.

READ FULL ARTICLE

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India's Right Wing Wants Nuclear War

Wednesday 17 December 2008

by: J. Sri Raman, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Kuppahalli Sitaramayya Sudarshan of India's Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Party stated that nuclear war between India and Pakistan may be necessary. (Photo: Reuters)

Mumbai's terrorist outrage of November 26 has found a response truly matching it in madness. A call for a nuclear war - and nothing less - has come as the culmination of warped and warlike reactions to the traumatizing tragedy, which has claimed a toll of 200 lives.

The demented call, which still cannot, unfortunately, be dismissed as inconsequential, is not only a regional war of the said, scary description. It is also one for a global conflict of the kind.

Fittingly, the call has emanated from the real fuehrer of India's far right. He may be relatively unknown to the outside world, and less known even in his country than political leaders of the "parivar," as the far-right "family" labels itself. But Kuppahalli Sitaramayya Sudarshan is the supremo of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the misleading name meaning the National Volunteers' Association.

The RSS holds a commanding position in the parivar, as its patriarch and ideological fountainhead. It has a hold over the political front of the "family," the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as well. Party leaders - even of such notoriety as Narendra Modi, who gloried in the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, and of such national-level ambitions as Lal Krishna Advani, styled as the "shadow prime minister" - have always had to proclaim loyalty of the RSS from time to time.

The RSS, as every political reporter in India knows, has tightened its hold over the BJP in time for the parliamentary elections to be held by May 2009. Sudarshan's clarion call came in the course of an interview with a freelance journalist and was quoted first in a leading Pakistani newspaper on December 12. Asked if India should go for a full-fledged war with Pakistan, 77-year-old Sudarshan said, "If there is no other way left. Whenever the demons start dominating this planet, there is no way other than the war. Tell me if there is any other way out. But war should be the last resort. Before that India should consider other options."

That was his only attempt at sounding reasonable. Asked if such a war would not escalate into a nuclear conflict, he was disarmingly candid, "Yes, I know it will not stop there. It will be nuclear war and a large number of people will perish."

The vision of the apocalypse was not restricted to the region. "In fact, not me alone but many people around the world have expressed their apprehension that this terrorism may ultimately result in a Third World War. And this will be a nuclear war in which many of us are going to be finished. But according to me, as of now, it is very necessary to defeat the demons and there is no other way."

Then came the coup de grace: "And let me say with confidence that after this destruction, a new world will emerge, which will be very good, free from evil and terrorism."

He had hinted at his horrific vision earlier too. In January 2002, when India and Pakistan traded nuclear threats during a terrifying standoff in Kashmir and elsewhere, Sudarshan recalled epic Mahabharata to make his point: "When [the] Mahabharata [war] was fought in Kurukshetra, its repercussions were felt across the country but now India was the Kurukshetra and the battle, if fought, would have its effects across the globe."

In May 2005, in another media interview, he said that Pakistan-controlled Kashmir (Azad Kashmir) should be "annexed by force." What if there is a nuclear war? He said, "If it happens, it'll happen. We can't keep quiet all the time because of the scare of nuclear weapons."

(read full article)

US Plans to Sign Nuclear Pact With UAE

Friday 12 December 2008

by: Jay Solomon, The Wall Street Journal

The Bush administration plans to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates in the coming weeks. (Photo: www.edf.fr)

Proposed cooperation with Middle Eastern nation would face hurdles in Congress on proliferation fears.

Washington - The Bush administration plans to sign its first nuclear-cooperation agreement with a Middle Eastern nation within the next few weeks, according to a senior U.S. official, raising concerns among congressional critics who say the deal could fuel nuclear proliferation in the region.

The proposed deal with the United Arab Emirates has attracted attention because the U.A.E.'s largest trading partner is Iran. The U.A.E. has served in the past as a transshipment point for technology with military applications headed to Iran.

The move could place President-elect Barack Obama in a political tight spot with a Middle East ally by forcing him to decide whether to push Congress to ratify the agreement. He hasn't taken an official position on the deal. An Obama spokesman declined to comment. The Bush administration has championed the nuclear agreement with the U.A.E. as a model for promoting peaceful nuclear energy while guarding against weapons proliferation.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, ranking Republican in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced legislation this week that would set conditions before Congress could approve the agreement. It would require that the next president certify the U.A.E. has taken extensive measures to cut off the flow of financing and sensitive technologies into Iran.

The U.A.E. says its nuclear-power program will have extensive safeguards to protect against nuclear materials being diverted. It has pledged to purchase nuclear fuel for its reactors from outside suppliers, rather than developing its own fuel. It says it would store nuclear waste externally. Also, it has agreed to allow monitoring and snap inspections by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency.

In recent months, the U.A.E. signed agreements with two American engineering companies - Thorium Power Ltd. of Virginia and CH2M Hill of Colorado - to oversee the development of its nuclear-power program. The U.A.E. has also hired a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, William Travers, to help run the U.A.E.'s nuclear regulatory body.

"This is a real counterexample to what Iran is doing," said the senior U.S. official Thursday. "We're seeking commitments from nations within the Middle East that they're going to rely on the markets for nuclear fuel."

The Bush administration also is working on nuclear-cooperation agreements with the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Bahrain. The pacts require Washington to share nuclear fuels, technologies and know-how on the condition that the countries commit to abiding by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and IAEA safeguards.

The U.A.E. sits on some of the world's largest energy reserves, but its leaders say the country's natural-gas resources are inadequate to match rising demand. "We have determined that nuclear energy is an option the U.A.E. cannot afford to ignore," said Hamad Ali Al Ka'abi, the head of the U.A.E.'s nuclear program, in an interview earlier this year.

The Bush administration initially hoped to sign the nuclear accord with the U.A.E. last month, when Abu Dhabi's crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, met President George W. Bush at Camp David, according to people familiar with the visit.

U.A.E. officials decided to delay the official signing over uncertainties about Mr. Obama's position and possible negative reaction from Congress, according to these officials. In 2006, the U.A.E.'s state-owned DP World had to scrap a plan to purchase the U.S. port holdings of Britain's P&O because of opposition in Congress.

The nuclear trafficking network run by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan used Dubai in the U.A.E. as one of its major bases, according to investigations of the Khan network. U.S. officials, however, say the U.A.E. has taken major steps to better manage its export controls and guard against money laundering.

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Margaret Coker in Abu Dhabi contributed to this article.